Here they trysted, here they strayed 247 XXIV. Not to the staring Day 249 XXV. What have I done for you 251 EPILOGUE 256 IN HOSPITAL _On ne saurait dire à quel point un homme_, _seul dans son_ _lit et malade_, _devient personnel_.— BALZAC. I ENTER PATIENT THE morning mists still haunt the stony street; The northern summer air is shrill and cold; And lo, the Hospital, grey, quiet, old, Where Life and Death like friendly chafferers meet. Thro’ the loud spaciousness and draughty gloom A small, strange child—so agèd yet so young!— Her little arm besplinted and beslung, Precedes me gravely to the waiting-room. I limp behind, my confidence all gone. The grey-haired soldier-porter waves me on, And on I crawl, and still my spirits fail: A tragic meanness seems so to environ These corridors and stairs of stone and iron, Cold, naked, clean—half-workhouse and half-jail. II WAITING A SQUARE, squat room (a cellar on promotion), Drab to the soul, drab to the very daylight; Plasters astray in unnatural-looking tinware; Scissors and lint and apothecary’s jars. Here, on a bench a skeleton would writhe from, Angry and sore, I wait to be admitted: Wait till my heart is lead upon my stomach, While at their ease two dressers do their chores. One has a probe—it feels to me a crowbar. A small boy sniffs and shudders after bluestone. A poor old tramp explains his poor old ulcers. Life is (I think) a blunder and a shame. III INTERIOR THE gaunt brown walls Look infinite in their decent meanness. There is nothing of home in the noisy kettle, The fulsome fire. The atmosphere Suggests the trail of a ghostly druggist. Dressings and lint on the long, lean table— Whom are they for? The patients yawn, Or lie as in training for shroud and coffin. A nurse in the corridor scolds and wrangles. It’s grim and strange. Far footfalls clank. The bad burn waits with his head unbandaged. My neighbour chokes in the clutch of chloral . . . O, a gruesome world! IV BEFORE